Badgers, enjoyed the thread - I read it 'cuz I saw a badgers1 at my 50nl table on FT, and wondered...but you're at nosebleed compared to me. Must be a badgers wannabe.

Saw the college note. I'm a professor, so I tend to vote for college. But taking some time off seems like a reasonable option in your case. The career options for fine arts profs are really tanking. My university, for example, is gutting the fine arts budget - and we're known as a liberal arts school. There are other things you can do with music. My sister was a piano performance/business major, got her MBA in France, and spent 10 years in arts marketing, working at the Oklahoma City Philaharmonic and the Kansas City Symphony as Marketing Director.

Good luck with the decision. Everyone has an opinion. As strongly as I feel about getting a college education, I can see you have thought about this a lot. There's lots of time in the future to go back, if you decide you want to. Make a +EV life decision and don't worry about what others think, imo.

Best wishes for poker, college and life.